Experience will guide us

McDaniel will look to veteran group as 115th football campaign
opens

WESTMINSTER, Md. - A combined 3-17 record over the last two
seasons might be enough to discourage most football coaches.
However, McDaniel's 17th-year head coach Tim
Keating is not most coaches.

"Unfortunately our entire team has struggled over the past
couple of years," Keating noted. "There are many reasons for that.
Fortunately, though, neither our coaches nor players have lost
their resolve. Our goal is to return the team to the success we had
in the late 1990s and early 2000s."

Keating has legitimate reasons to think 2009 could be the first
year on that road back to the top. The 115th season of Green Terror
football opens on Sept. 5 at home against St. Vincent with 22
seniors on the roster - the squad's largest senior class in four
years.

"I think we have an outstanding group of seniors who are going
to be the core of leading this team back to the championship form
we enjoyed not so long ago," Keating stated. "We just need to get
these young men to believe in themselves and good things will
happen."

McDaniel does not just have 22 seniors on the roster. The Green
Terror could have as many as 15 in the opening day starting lineup.

Following its 2009 opener at home, McDaniel travels to Moravian
to open its slate in the Centennial Conference (CC), where the
Green Terror was picked to finish eighth in the annual balloting of
coaches and sports information directors. McDaniel garnered 26
votes, four ahead of ninth-place Juniata. Johns Hopkins was tabbed
as the preseason favorite with 115 votes, including 10 first-place
votes. Dickinson and Muhlenberg shared second-place honors with 102
points. Muhlenberg received five first-place tallies while
Dickinson earned two. Moravian, chosen fourth with 91 points,
received the other first-place vote. Gettysburg (75), Franklin
& Marshall (63) and Ursinus (45) make up the middle of the
poll.

As with every new season, there will be questions that need to
be answered for the Green Terror to have the success it did when
the team won seven CC titles between 1997 and 2004. Will
Tom Massucci (Tabernacle, N.J./Seneca) take hold
of the starting quarterback job and not let go? Who will replace
Jay Leonard in the kicking game? Who will provide the depth behind
a very experienced starting 11 on defense? What will a change in
defensive coordinator bring?

That last question might worry many coaches. However, not many
coaches have the luxury of bringing a two-time Arena Football
League-champion coach on staff. Keating did just that, though, with
the addition of Mike Dailey, who replaced Eric Van
Heusen in the spring. Van Heusen left for a job in the newly formed
United Football League. Dailey was out of work when his league
suspended operations. The timing was perfect.

"I'm extremely excited to have Mike on board with us," Keating
said. "He brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. It's like
having (former defensive coordinator) Al (Thomas) again."

Special Teams

McDaniel lost only five of its starting 22 from a year ago and
also returns every key member of special teams save one.

The only legitimate question in the specialties is in kickoffs
and field goals, where the Green Terror lost Leonard to graduation.

Freshman Nick DeLuca (Devon, Pa./Conestoga)
could be the answer to that question.

"Nick's definitely got the accuracy to hit the kicks we need him
to hit," Keating disclosed. "He probably doesn't have quite the
length right now that Jay had but we're going to work on increasing
his range."

Another option is sophomore Jake Nichols (Frederick,
Md./Gov. Thomas Johnson), who could emerge as the starting
kicker and will likely be the backup to Travis Wenrich
(Wernersville, Pa./Conrad Weiser) at punter.

Wenrich punted 67 times over the first nine games of 2008,
averaging 33.9 yards per boot. He unfurled three punts of 50-plus
yards that included a season-best 61-yarder in the second quarter
at St. Vincent. He dropped 11 kicks inside the 20-yard line and had
only two touchbacks. He also forced 12 fair catches.

Wenrich is also one of the Green Terror's options in the return
game. Last year, he returned 16 punts for a team-high 169 yards.

Matt Cahill (Broomall, Pa./Haverford Twp.) was
also a weapon in both the punt- and kick-return game last season,
returning four punts and five kickoffs. Among his 89 punt-return
yards was a 70-yard touchdown scamper in the season finale at Johns
Hopkins. He racked up 76 yards in the kick-return game.

T.J. Develin (Boyerstown, Pa./Boyerstown Area)
and Juris Eyler (Middletown, Md./Middletown) had
the most touches on kickoffs. Develin had 13 returns for a
team-best 278 yards, averaging 21.4 yards per return. Eyler
returned kickoffs 11 times for 169 yards (15.4 ypr).